"Easy A" star Amanda Bynes, who had taken a break from acting to focus on her life, says she is ready to return to the spotlight after enduring a "dark, sad world" of drug abuse.
The actor said she first started smoking marijuana at the age of 16 but it was her dependence on Adderall that led to her spiralling out of control, she told Paper magazine in an interview.
"I'm really ashamed and embarrassed with the things I said. I can't turn back time but if I could, I would," the actor, who features on the cover of the magazine, said.
Bynes said she started smoking marijuana from a young age but she "didn't get addicted" and "wasn't abusing it" but she later progressed to trying harder drugs such as MDMA, cocaine and ecstasy.
"(I tried) cocaine three times but I never got high from cocaine. I never liked it. It was never my drug of choice.... I definitely abused Adderall."
She said she got hooked to Adderall after reading a magazine article that called it "the new skinny pill".
"...they were talking about how women were taking it to stay thin. I was like, 'Well, I have to get my hands on that," she said.
Bynes managed to get a prescription by going to a psychiatrist and "faking the symptoms of ADD (attention deficit disorder)."
"When I was doing Hall Pass (2010), I remember being in the trailer and I used to chew the Adderall tablets because I thought they made me (more) high (that way). I remember chewing on a bunch of them and literally being scatterbrained and not being able to focus on my lines or memorize them for that matter."
The 32-year-old actor's erratic behaviour led to many tabloid stories and prompted her to announce her retirement from acting, something that she considers stupid now.
After stepping away from the spotlight, Bynes described herself as being someone who had "no purpose in life" and spending her time being "stoned all day long."
Bynes also credited her isolation to hanging out with a "seedier crowd."
"I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me," she explained.
Bynes is aware that her behaviour sparked a negative reaction from the public, which she said led people to "diagnose" her.
She is now four years sober, and credits her parents with "really helping me get back on track."
"I have no fear of the future. I've been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it, so I just feel like it's only up from here.
PTI
